littlebitofhifi said:

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WWC expansion for 2023 is official!

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Excellent. I'm down for any move that only allows the top two teams from a group to qualify.

When (most) 3rd place teams advance to the knockouts, the group stage really kinda sucks.

gig them said:

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littlebitofhifi said:

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WWC expansion for 2023 is official!

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Excellent. I'm down for any move that only allows the top two teams from a group to qualify.

When (most) 3rd place teams advance to the knockouts, the group stage really kinda sucks.

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The only downside is we might see " groups of death".


I'd hate to see the US get 3rd and go home early because they're in a group with the Netherlands, Germany, and England.

They draw into pots based on fifa rankings so those top teams could never be in the same group.

The "group of death" scenario from this latest World Cup though would have been where Italy came out of nowhere and shocked Australia. So in a group with Italy, Australia, Brazil, and Jamaica, Brazil would have been sent home before the knockouts, which would be a big blow.

littlebitofhifi said:

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They draw into pots based on fifa rankings so those top teams could never be in the same group.

The "group of death" scenario from this latest World Cup though would have been where Italy came out of nowhere and shocked Australia. So in a group with Italy, Australia, Brazil, and Jamaica, Brazil would have been sent home before the knockouts, which would be a big blow.

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It would... but that's what makes the group stages compelling in the Men's WC. If you stumble in that opening match, going home becomes a very real possibility.

Grapesoda2525 said:

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The only downside is we might see " groups of death".

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There isn't enough depth on the Women's side to create a group of depth. There wasn't depth at 24 teams and there certainly won't be at 32 teams.

I would tend to agree as the only real depth comes from Europe.

Per the most recent FIFA rankings (ya I know) here is a breakdown of the Top 50 teams by confederation-
UEFA: 26
CONMEBOL: 5
CONCACAF: 4
CAF: 3
AFC: 10
OFC: 2

Interesting things I noticed - Jamaica at #51, highest ranked CAF team is Nigeria at 36, Thailand fell 5 spots since the previous rankings to 39. Myanmar at 46 (with North Korea at 9, China at 16, Uzbekistan at 44 oppressive governments arent doing too bad in the women's game)

mathguy86 said:

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Grapesoda2525 said:

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The only downside is we might see " groups of death".

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There isn't enough depth on the Women's side to create a group of depth. There wasn't depth at 24 teams and there certainly won't be at 32 teams.

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completely agree with this.

Also seems like a pointless move because it doesn't get them another USWNT match for their TV inventory.

The highest match ratings for this WWC were in Brazil (35M for Italy vs Brazil). Italy's viewership was up 35x to 7M.

Nearly the entire nation of Holland watched the final.

It's a global game...lots of people are watching games other than the USWNT.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/womens-2019-soccer-world-cup-smashes-global-ratings-records-1221957

Interesting and I didn't know that. Wonder if garbage games in TV inventory will sell well.

littlebitofhifi said:

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The highest match ratings for this WWC were in Brazil (35M for Italy vs Brazil). Italy's viewership was up 35x to 7M.

Nearly the entire nation of Holland watched the final.

It's a global game...lots of people are watching games other than the USWNT.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/womens-2019-soccer-world-cup-smashes-global-ratings-records-1221957

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Interesting because only 15-16 million Americans watched the WWC final in the US (on Fax and Telemundo). About the same figure as This is Us and Young Sheldon

Also I wonder what the revenue stream looks like by country and on a per-viewer basis.

Yeah for sure. I think that's the primary match where the time zone became a major issue for US viewers. 11am ET on a Sunday or whatever it was is just brutal.

But those Brazil numbers, having more televised games with the expanded field, and being closer to US time zones has me thinking Brazil's odds to host have gone way up. Everyone wants Australia but that timing is just going to be a nightmare for TV ratings everywhere.

Completely irrelevant to this thread: I was in Australia during a lot of the 2002 Korea/Japan World Cup. It was a hell of a lot of fun watching USA 2-0 Mexico with a bunch of drunk Aussies at night in some crazy bar in Cairns.

I think expansion will be great for the women's game as a whole. With more teams involved, there will be more desire for federations to put money into their women's programs. Downside though is that we're gonna have some really crappy group stage games. In the long run though it's going to be a net positive.

At this year's world cup you had 14 legitimate teams in the final 16 (Nigeria and Cameroon were both 3rd place qualifiers and both lost in the round of 16 by a score of 3-0, so I wouldn't consider either of those legitimate teams to make knockout rounds).

So adding 8 more teams will make it so that each group has roughly 2 legitimate squads and 2 others, much like the USWNT's group this year. There were a two groups this year that had 3 legitimate clubs in the group.

Adding 8 more teams will dilute the matches a bit, but not a whole lot, plus it will give 8 additional teams a chance to grow the sport in their country. Will be interesting to see how those 8 additional spots are allocated. I would anticipate each federation getting 1, Europe maybe getting 2, and then a couple of federations getting an additional half spot for a qualifier game.

Not sure if there was a more appropriate thread but this seems like a good one to keep going regarding USWNT news.

So Frank De Boer came out and said he thinks equal pay is rubbish and revenue should determine what someone is paid...hard to argue. I'm sure he's gonna catch some hell for this hahaha

https://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-womens-world-cup/story/3919998/atlanta-coach-de-boer----equal-pay-ridiculou

OregonAggie said:

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Not sure if there was a more appropriate thread but this seems like a good one to keep going regarding USWNT news.

So Frank De Boer came out and said he thinks equal pay is rubbish and revenue should determine what someone is paid...hard to argue. I'm sure he's gonna catch some hell for this hahaha

https://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-womens-world-cup/story/3919998/atlanta-coach-de-boer----equal-pay-ridiculou

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Gotta love that dutch honesty.

Those two months I had with a dutch girl were interesting.

Not that hard to argue buy my guess is that there are ample posts doing so amongst the 1,100 in this thread so no need to pile on now.

I bet that would be a fun conversation over a beer

And as long as people keep misapplying the basic fundamentals of sports economics, I'll continue to post my disdain.

A bit premature to start a 2023 thread so figured I'd add here.

Official bids are in! Realistically I think it's between Aus/Nz and Brazil. Colombia doesn't have the women's pedigree and Japan will have just hosted the last major. Now we wait until June...

https://www.fifa.com/womens-football/news/fifa-women-s-world-cup-2023tm-four-bids-submitted

I can tell you one thing, Brazilians don't want it.

Not disagreeing but are you seeing/reading anything specific about this? I know Brazil doesn't support women's sport so there's likely no public support (and maybe even opposition) but I'd think FIFA would love to have Brazil host. 1st WWC in South America, US time zone friendly for TV, Marta as ambassador, etc.

I think Aus/NZ did the right thing with a joint bid so maybe are strongest in theory, but time zone and travel-bility aren't small hurdles to overcome.

If they play day games in AUS/NZ it could be primetime in US like the President's Cup is now

FIFA would love it. The Brazilian government would love it. The actual people that live there would be very opposed. They hardly wanted to host 2014 and they definitely didn't want the Olympics. They're having some serious economic issues and the people are broke. I know quite a few people down there thanks to A&M. They've always said that the country needs to really focus on getting their economics fixed rather than host another massive international event.

I think NZ/Aus. would be a great place to host.

Makes complete sense.

Fingers crossed for Aus/NZ. Still haven't checked either country off my bucket list so I wouldn't mind a 5-6 week trip for some women's football!

Bold strategy cotton...

Yeah, I'm mystified as to why the Fed thought that was a wise way to approach this.

jeffk said:

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Yeah, I'm mystified as to why the Fed thought that was a wise way to approach this.

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I'll take "Things that show how stupid US Soccer is" for $2000 Alex.

__DAILY_DOUBLE__

Yeah, there's an argument to be made that the women are compensated differently but not less than men.

This is not that argument.

USSF can just declare bankruptcy and go away.

Well, after just about every single major us soccer sponsor all but called them idiots, the inevitable backtrack.